Rumelia Collective plays music of the Balkans, Middle East
The music of the Balkans and Middle East will swirl and drone throughout San Miguel Chapel when the Rumelia Collective takes the stage Saturday in Santa Fe.
Rife with drones and set in odd time signatures and tonalities, this Balkan gypsy folk music sounds exotic to western ears. The group sets its five-part vocal harmonies against guitar, violin, accordion, mandolin, lute and percussion.
“It brings back this quality of song from a different time and place,” group member Alysha Shaw said. “It’s different from country to country and region to region.”
The performance will span music from Albania, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Macedonia, Russia, Serbia and Turkey.
“It might sound a bit nasal-y; almost like a reed instrument vocal timbre,” Shaw said. “Oftentimes. one singer is holding a drone and the harmonies and melodies are bouncing around it.”
The results produce a constantly shifting landscape of sound pulsing with angular rhythms and dramatic dynamics.
Albanian music is polyphonic, with two counter melodies moving around a drone at the same time, Shaw said.
“A lot of the close harmonies are like village folk music,” she added.
The songs may be about love, sheepherding or the resistance songs of the Ottoman Empire.
“I first heard Balkan music 12 years ago,” Shaw said. “I had never heard anything like it. There’s something being activated in this music that goes to a deep place in my soul. It’s the record of the cultural mixing and conflict of the past centuries. It draws me in this primal, guttural way.”
The name “Rumelia” comes from “Rumeli,” meaning “land of the Romans,” a Turkish word used to describe the southern Balkan region. Its members are Shaw, Nicolle Jensen, Willa Roberts, Sitara Schauer and Hayriye Büsra Solak.